Roski, state squaring off over legality of NFL development

INDUSTRY - Developer Ed Roski Jr. and the state are embroiled in a legal dispute over a proposed National Football League stadium on the east side of the city.

Roski's plans for a 592-acre development depend on $180 million in property tax money, according to city officials. The money would pay for infrastructure around the stadium.

The state on Dec. 18 wrote a letter prohibiting the public money from going toward the development, saying some of the contractual obligations haven't taken place and therefore cannot be enforced.

Roski's lawyer fired a letter back to the state earlier this month, calling the state's conclusions "demonstrably wrong."

"Frankly, we are shocked by the completely erroneous analysis and conclusions set forth in these paragraphs and respectfully request an immediate review of these determinations," wrote Roski's attorney, George Mihlsten, in a letter to the state.

Roski's lawyers recently had a meeting with the state, but the issue still isn't resolved, said Kevin Radecki, Industry's city manager.

The money to be spent on the stadium would come from accounts formerly controlled by the city's redevelopment agency. Such agencies were outlawed by the state government in 2011, and only projects with existing contracts were allowed to move forward.

The state argued that several parts of Roski's contract with the city haven't been formalized, citing instances where one part of the project would not take place until the other parts were finished.

Roski's attorney said that the state's arguments don't make sense because they would preempt any phased project from taking place.

Industry's City Council has taken the opinion that the project is eligible to go forward.

Conspicuously absent from the letter to the state was any mention of football. The letter mentions only a commercial development that gained environmental approval in 2005. Roski in 2009 sought and gained the passage of a law that exempted the change to a stadium project from parts of the state's environmental review process.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said that, as far as the NFL knows, Roski has not stopped seeking an NFL team.

Roski was not in the office Tuesday and could not be reached for comment.

Roski, who is the billionaire president of Majestic Realty Co., in 2008 announced that he hoped to buy all or part of a team and then move it to an $800 million stadium that would be cut into the hills on the east side of the city.

At the time, he called the stadium a "sure thing" and said it was a completely private development with "absolutely no taxpayer dollars."

But Roski had trouble convincing another team owner to sell him all or part of a franchise. And in the months following the announcement, it came to light that the stadium site was owned by the city and leased to Roski for no up-front money. The city was to be reimbursed through a profit-sharing agreement. And last year, city officials said the arrangement included $180 million in public funds for grading, streets, and other infrastructure.

While Roski was still looking for a team, his former business partners at Anschutz Entertainment Group announced that they hope to build an NFL stadium in downtown Los Angeles. Most experts believe a downtown stadium would rule out the possiblity of Roski attracting a team to Industry.

The substance of the disagreement is tied up in the language of the California Environmental Quality Act, which calls for builders and municipalities to consider the consequences of a development and then to try to make up for damage caused by the project.

The contracts for those make-up projects have not been formalized.

When it comes to California's environmental law, such disputes are common, said Doug Johnson, a fellow at the Claremont McKenna Rose Institute of State and Local Government.